Eaters

Eaters

• Title Page
  
• PART I:
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• PART II:
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Part III:
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty One
  
• Chapter Twenty Two
  
• Chapter Twenty Three
  
• Chapter Twenty Four
  
• Chapter Twenty Five
  
• Chapter Twenty Six
  

Eaters

Michelle DePaepe

Published by Permuted Press at Smashwords.

Copyright 2012 by Michelle DePaepe

www.PermutedPress.com

PART I:

THE BEGINNING

Chapter One

The fire crackled and popped, sending a shower of sparks into the night to compete with the stars. Cheryl pushed another marshmallow onto her stick and held it over the pit. She waited until it charred and began to ooze before she pulled it out and blew out the blue flame.

“Is that one for me?”

She looked over at Mark, her fiancé, reclining in his lawn chair as he opened one eye.

Several minutes ago, she’d thought he’d gone to sleep. With his eyes closed, and his body twitching, she figured that he was miles away in some nightmare land, reliving explosions and sniper attacks.

“You already had about a dozen. I figured you’d passed out from the sugar load.”

“I didn’t know you were counting,” he said as he yawned and stretched.

She laughed and handed him the stick. Mark was fond of calling himself a
growing boy
who needed lots of meat and sugar to fuel his biceps. It was those two
guns
and the rifle in the back of his pickup that made her feel relatively safe out here in an isolated campsite fifty miles west of Denver.

As he sat up and licked the black and white goo from his fingers, she looked at the moon high over the mountain peaks. It seemed like a white lantern, hung on a peg in the sky like a grownup’s nightlight. The previous nights had been windy, but tonight it was still, like the earth was holding its breath for something.

“It’s so quiet out tonight,” she remarked.

“Well, enjoy it, ‘cause you’re heading back to the rat race bright and early tomorrow.”

“Thanks. I was trying to forget that for a couple more hours.”

That was true, but in reality, after three nights of grungy camping, she was ready to go back to civilization. She knew Mark wasn’t. This was their reunion vacation after his yearlong tour of duty in Afghanistan. He had said that he wanted to be alone with her and decompress without distractions from other people. She also knew that he wanted to be far away from the sound of exploding fireworks from the Fourth of July celebrations, because they reminded him of the bad kind of fireworks that could cause a sudden loss of life or limb. For that reason, she had agreed to the getaway in the wilderness.

It was Sunday. They were supposed to have headed back today, but he bargained with her for another night, saying that if they left around 6:30 a.m. Monday morning, she’d have enough time to shower and get to work. Then, he could unpack their gear later that day.

After roasting and eating another marshmallow, she smacked at a mosquito hovering over her head. The damn things seemed to love her blood, even though she’d doused herself in a vat of repellent. But they didn’t seem to bother Mark at all.

“I’m getting eaten alive out here,” she said as she wiped a red smear off her shoulder. “I’m going back in the tent.”

“You might as well get naked now. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

When he joined her, they made love as the orange glow of the embers in the fire pit outside died down to wisps of smoke. It wasn’t as frenzied as the first couple of nights. It was softer, more slow and tender, like it had been a year ago. They melded together like jigsaw pieces then snuggled into each other’s warmth.

She had trouble falling asleep after that. While Mark was snoring away, she heard a twig snap nearby, followed by a deep grunt. That set her on edge, wondering what sort of animal could be prowling near the camp. She knew there were bears and mountain lions in the area—that was a given in the Rocky Mountains. Attacks seemed rare, because she rarely heard about them, but statistics meant little when you were sleeping in a cloth tent that was really not much more protection than lying out in the open. She reached across Mark’s bare hip and felt for his rifle just to reassure herself that it was there. He’d taught her to shoot it once when she braved accompanying him on an elk hunting trip, but that was a couple of years ago, and she wasn’t sure any of that training or some of the self defense he’d taught her would be much good if she came face to face with a snarling beast and was paralyzed with fear.

Despite the day’s heat, it seemed to get colder with every passing second. She shivered as she strained to listen for any indication that an animal was near. After a few more minutes passed without a repeat of the sounds, her body relaxed, and she nestled closer to Mark’s warm body. Eventually, her alert ears yielded to the heaviness of her eyelids, and she fell asleep.

When she woke, the sky was a dark shade of blue with dawn just cracking in a zigzag glow over the nearest peak. She reached over and found that Mark was gone.

As she unzipped the tent, she stepped out and said, “Geez what time is—”

Mark was wearing his boxers, holding his rifle with one hand and a cigarette with the other as he scraped back and forth at the dirt with his bare feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing. Was the pit still hot? Did the fire jump?”

“No.”

“Then what—”

She noticed the six-foot path that he’d cleared with his feet. It led from the fire pit straight up to the front of the tent.

“I heard something last night. It was animal tracks, wasn’t it? A bear?”

“No.”

“Come on. Don’t—”

“Let’s get going.”

He ignored the rest of her questions and began to pack up the tent.

She noticed that their food cache was still securely hanging from a high branch of a nearby tree. There were no claw marks in the bark, but it probably had been a bear, and Mark just didn’t want to scare her by admitting it. She shrugged it off. It didn’t matter now. The bear was probably long gone, and they were leaving anyway.

After putting on her shorts and tank top, she packed up the rest of her things and put her duffel bag on the floor in the front of the truck. The clock on the dashboard said 5:47 a.m., which meant they were leaving even earlier than they had planned. She wondered why he was in a rush all of a sudden, but with his grumpy attitude she didn’t want to press him about it.

As they drove east, winding around curve after curve, towards the sun’s brightening glow, she was surprised at how many cars were going in the other direction so early in the morning. She figured they must be heading back home after spending the holiday weekend in the city.

Mark turned on the radio, tuned it to a rock station, and cranked the volume up a hair above her comfort level. She sunk down in her seat and leaned her head on one hand to muffle the sound of the screeching vocals.

For twenty minutes, he drove, nodding his head to the thumping bass guitar in each song, and didn’t talk to her at all. She knew something was bothering him. Whatever was on his mind, she guessed it might have something to do with his days overseas. There was no doubt that there were dark things that had happened there that she probably didn’t want to know about. Of course, he was probably also nervous about rejoining the civilized world and the start of his duty with the National Guard in a few days. She decided to wait until he was ready to talk about it.

She flipped the visor down and looked in the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes, confirming that she’d had precious little sleep for days due to last night’s uneasiness and the previous nights of marathon long sex. Her shoulder length blonde hair was stringy and in sore need of a shampoo. She couldn’t wait to get home to her apartment and wash all the funk off.

As Mark drove on, she reclined her seat and closed her eyes, feeling the sway of the truck as it rounded another curve. She fingered the diamond engagement ring on her hand, twisting it back and forth, as she imagined that the gentle rocking motion of the car was the waltz of a cruise ship as it swayed on the waves, carrying them along on their Caribbean honeymoon.
Next summer, maybe?
They hadn’t set a date yet. Her daydreams soon turned to the dreams of her subconscious as she fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes again, the truck had stopped.

They were at a gas station in the foothills on the outskirts of Boulder. Mark wasn’t in the car, and she saw no one else around. The wind kicked up a dust devil a few yards away, and the orange, white, and blue plastic flags strung across the awning flapped back and forth.

She stepped out of the truck and stretched the stiffness out of her legs, then walked towards the building to try and find Mark.

Inside, the counter and shop were vacant. She guessed that Mark was in the restroom, so she decided to go as well.

When she came out, Mark was filling a Styrofoam cup with coffee from a machine. His hand shook as he tried to hold it steady under the stream of brown liquid.

“Where’s the clerk?”

“Don’t know. The pump is working, so I filled up. You want mocha or French vanilla?”

“Mocha,” she said as she pulled on her bottom lip and watched him.

He poured her coffee, grabbed a couple of breakfast burritos from the cooler, then laid two twenties on the counter. “Let’s go.”

As they got back into the truck, she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

He kept driving with his eyes straight ahead then he reached for the radio and turned the volume up.

In that instant, she thought he was going to crank up the music and tune her out again. But, it wasn’t music—it was a newscast.

The female announcer had a high-pitched warble in her voice. “
…flu-like symptoms. Starts with a fever, then nausea and vomiting. Muscle aches and chills…”

“There’s some kind of epidemic going on. Apparently, it spread pretty fast over the weekend.”

“…
some may experience unnatural cravings for spoiled food…”

“Spoiled food?” Cheryl grimaced. “What kind of—”

“Shhh…”

“…
strange facial distortions and rotting flesh…”

She listened to the rest of the story.

When it was over and a commercial came on, he turned the volume down, then turned his eyes back towards the road.

“That can’t be for real. It’s ridiculous. Who gets sick and wants to eat anything, much less spoiled crap? I can’t believe—”

He turned the volume back up and flipped to a newscast on another station.

“…
hospitals are beginning to feel the strain as more and more of the sick overwhelm their doors…”

“It sounds real to me.”

“What if it’s a hoax? Some kind of
War of the Worlds
thing?”

“What if it’s not?”

Cheryl wasn’t buying in to his concern. Even if there was some new epidemic, she didn’t believe that it could be that serious. Every other flu or virus scare in the past seemed to just be blown out of proportion by the media and never turned out to be anything significant. She wondered if Mark was just focusing on the radio news as a way to get out of talking about what was really on his mind.